Journal Through the Bible: Week 23 Thursday

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Numbers chapter 19

So many instances of rebellion had occurred with God threatening several times to obliterate all of the Hebrew descendants of Abraham except for Moses and Aaron. God said that He would carry on His promise with Abraham strictly through their family line but Moses and Aaron interceded several times on behalf of the people and the reason was because it would bring glory to God. Moses said that the watching nations would think that God had failed if He destroyed the young Israeli nation and Moses did not want that!

God listened to Moses and granted His request. In this chapter we read of a reaffirmation of the covenant with the fledgling nation with the sacrifice of a red heifer.

Does God make any promises in this chapter?

• Since the red heifer was a sign of the covenant God was in essence telling the people that He was forgiving them for their rebellion and reaffirming His covenant with the younger generation that was maturing over the 39 years of wilderness wanderings.
• The statutes given in this chapter are given to show that those who would take seriously the commandments of repentance and sacrifice would receive the forgiveness of sin but those who refused to follow God's plan of salvation as pictured in the ceremonies of sacrifice and cleanliness would be cut off.

Does this chapter teach anything about Jesus?

• Hebrews 9:12-22 says that the heifer was a seal of the first covenant between God and the Hebrew descendants of Abraham (see also Genesis 15:9 for the first instance of the heifer being used to ratify the covenant between God and Abraham) and that the sacrifice of Jesus as pictured by the heifer ratified the new covenant between God and the spiritual descendants of Abraham

Does this chapter teach anything about yet-future events?

• Hebrews 9:13 also says that the ashes of the heifer were for the purification of the unclean. Someday this earth will be destroyed by burning (2 Peter 3:7-10) and the New Earth will be created. (Question: Will the New Earth be created from the ashes of this earth?)
• The principles of sacrifice and ceremonial cleanliness pictured in this chapter again show a division between those who follow God's plan and those who don't. Just as the soul who disregarded God's statute of preparing himself to stand before God physically and ceremonially washed by water and the sprinkling of the water of separation would be cut off from those who did, so will it be in the future. Those who refuse to follow God's plan of preparing themselves to stand before God will be cut off forever.

Does God issue any commands?

• God told Moses and Aaron to have the people bring a red heifer without spot and one that had never worn a yoke so that Eleazar the priest could take her outside the camp and someone could slay her in front of him and Eleazar could sprinkle the blood in front of the tabernacle 7 times. Then someone would burn the heifer completely. While the heifer was being offered as a burnt sacrifice cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet would be thrown into the fire.
• The priest, Eleazar, would wash himself and his clothes before returning to the camp. He would be unclean until evening. Likewise for the man the man that burnt the sacrifice in front of Eleazar and the man that carried the ashes outside the camp.
• Someone who was ceremonially clean would gather the ashes and take them outside the camp to a clean place. The ashes were to be kept for "a water of separation" because it was a purification, or sin offering, for sin.
• God restated the laws of ceremonial uncleanness such as those who touched a dead body. They would be unclean 7 days. Then the ashes from the dead heifer would be placed in a basen with running water. This would be sprinkled with hyssop upon the unclean person, tent, or utensils on the third and seventh days. Anyone who refused to cleanse themselves physically and ceremonially would be cut off from the nation.